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What a Small ISIS Cell in Trinidad is Teaching SOUTHCOM

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Earlier this year, working with its partners on the ground, the U.S. military disrupted an alleged ISIS-inspired attack that would have targeted a festival — in Trinidad and Tobago.

The raid grabbed headlines immediately afterward. But it — and U.S. Southern Command’s ongoing efforts to help the Trinidad security forces develop counter-extremism capabilities — offer lessons about how to confront radicalism at home and abroad, SOUTHCOM’s commander Adm. Kurt Tidd said Wednesday.

Some of the lessons SOUTHCOM is learning have nothing to do with military or law enforcement’s role in tracking and preventing extremist activity. After the raid, for example, the Trinidad government struggled to prosecute the alleged perpetrators because the country’s laws hadn’t caught up with the new threat…